A born and raised San Diegan, Beck graduated from UCLA in two years, going on to become the University of Pittsburgh’s youngest MBA graduate at 21. Beck started BAM Communications while working as a news anchor in San Diego. After winning an Emmy in 2011 for her TV work, she focused entirely on her entrepreneurial interests, growing BAM while starting Bite. Bite became San Diego’s top-rated and largest food tour company in the country. Beck sold Bite in 2016.

As BAM’s founder, Beck splits her time between San Diego, San Francisco and New York in pursuit of talent and hot companies that are seeking PR superheroes for help growing both mindshare and market share. Beck is also an investor with Plum Alley and Backstage Capital, two groups that support investing in diverse founders.

Best advise I I ever got: One of my favorite things my old business coach taught me was “the rule of six.” It’s a Native American tenet that says that for each apparent phenomenon, devise at least six plausible explanations. When you do this exercise, it forces you to not latch onto to your gut reaction or first instinct which you assume is “the truth.” So often, people believe there is only one truth, usually the one they came up with, instead of considering all the contexts, facts, and perspectives that may explain why something is the way it is.

Latest lesson learneds: It sounds so simple, but: Everyone is human. Humans are flawed, complex, erratic, imperfect and can get hurt, lonely, rejected, and sad. I try to remember this every day, and it grants me some patience and empathy not only with people at large, but with our team and clients.

Favorite ABL (Always Be Learning) goal right now: I love to fly helicopters and have been for nearly three years. There is nothing like the freedom and speculator views you get from a helicopter. In addition, flying one takes full attention: you have to constantly be listening to air traffic control, watch all of your instruments, scan the horizon, use your feet for tail rotor control, keep your two hands guiding the collective and cyclic controls, think about rates of descent, etc. It allows your mind to dive into something demanding, and I love that.